Logos are omnipresent in our society today, mainly to invite support and loyalty to an organization. Thus sports teams, nongovernmental organizations, governments and especially businesses, large and small, use logos constantly in the hope of establishing product identification in the consumer’s mind. All are competing for your attention, shopping loyalty, and above all, your dollars. So what about our logo?
The “One World, One People” logo of the World Socialist Movement embodies many of our beliefs and seeks to put our case before you. “One World” means that we see the world as one continuous co-operative entity rather than the world that is divided into competing sectors or countries. Socialists see the world without boundaries, where co-operation and mutual help will take place between autonomous and largely self-sufficient regions. As there will be no money or trade, there will be nothing to go to war for. If one region is deficient in steel, for example, it need only request the amount needed from a steel-producing area.
By contrast, the competing sectors and countries in the present world have arbitrary boundaries drawn on a map by groups of competing capitalists to mark their control of resources in a particular region. They continually seek to extend their boundaries or influence to include other resource rich areas and trade routes. Protecting these spheres of influence inevitably leads to war, a constant state in capitalism.
Afghanistan is a prime example. Created by Britain in the 19th century to provide a buffer between its empire and that of Russia, it threw together many culturally disparate groups and created a recipe for turmoil lasting to the present time. America/NATO’s war in this country is certainly more about establishing hegemony to secure oil and gas pipeline routes than it is about stopping terrorism.
“One World” would mean a world council, elected democratically from all the various regions to solve world problems,armed with the knowledge and tools to do the job properly. The petty squabbles and usual monetary constraints responsible for today’s tragic lack of action on such pressing global problems as starvation, poverty, homelessness, and environmental degradation would not exist. Thus, an agreed course of action to improve the environment could not be vetoed by a single country, as the Americans did to the Kyoto agreement, feeble as it was, with the excuse that saving the environment would hurt that country’s economy (read: profits). In socialism, if something needs doing to improve our conditions, it will be done. We need only have the will to seek the knowledge and resources required.
The “One People” part of our logo refers to the fact that we are all members of one race—the human race—and we share the same planet along with multitudes of other species. We all have similar needs—food, water, shelter, health, education, security, etc. The disorder of capitalist production and distribution of wealth means that all workers, companies, and regions must compete to grab as much material wealth for themselves as possible, to the detriment of others who become the losers in the system. Thus, we currently have 20% of the world’s population in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australasia consuming 80% of the world’s resources, mostly in a blatantly wasteful fashion.
Socialists hold that the planet’s resources if managed properly, can provide more than all the essential needs for a full and productive life for everyone. Further, after abolishing the capitalist economic and class system, there will no longer exist hierarchies of social privilege or class divisions. Will we, then, be all the same? Of course not! There will still be different cultures, languages, food, literature, and arts that will continue to flourish and enrich the lives of all. They’ll just be able to develop better without the constant barrage of the Golden Arches and Colonel Sanders logos they are subjected to today. It is obvious that availing ourselves of these cultural riches will benefit all, and gone will be the present capitalist rationalization to go to war with other nations and cultures for reasons that have nothing to do with ordinary workers.
This is what socialism can and will achieve. When it will happen is up to you—when you and our fellow workers embrace the concept and inaugurate it. Hasten the day!
J. Ayers SPC
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